I have planned approximately seven different lives for myself this week.
In one, I move to London after graduation and somehow land my dream job. I also have a cute apartment and enough disposable income to casually book weekend trips to Italy. The logistics of how any of this is possible is still unclear, but that feels like a problem for future me.
In another, I get my master’s degree. The subject of my master’s degree changes depending on the day, but in this version of my life, I am academically inclined and passionate about my subject of choice. I spend my afternoons reading in coffee shops and, for some reason, own a lot of nice coats.
Then there’s the version of me who moves home, saves money, gets a sensible job, and makes responsible financial decisions. This version of me has a five-year plan, contributes regularly to her savings account, and definitely knows what an RRSP is without having to Google it.
There have also been brief considerations of completely changing career paths, moving somewhere I’ve never been, and abandoning everything to live in a tiny European city where I write for a living and become a regular at a local cafe. In this fantasy, visas, rent, and employment are minor details that will simply work themselves out.
All this and it’s only Thursday.
There is something almost comical about the number of identity crises you can fit into your early twenties. One TikTok I see of a girl living in Paris has me ready to move abroad, while the next has me convinced that what I really need is a corporate job and a good blazer. Then, someone asks what I’m doing after graduation, and suddenly every plan I’ve tried to make leaves my body.
It’s like I’m holding a big sign that says “please ask me serious questions about my future so that you can remind me that I have no idea what I’m doing.”
I have come to believe that there is a very specific formula to the early-twenties existential crisis.
First, there’s the trigger. Graduation. A birthday. A breakup. A particularly aggressive LinkedIn scroll. Sometimes it’s just 11:47 p.m. on a Wednesday, when the night time starts to become scary again except you’re not a kid afraid of the dark, but an adult scared of all the decisions you suddenly have to make.
Then comes the questioning. Do I like what I’m studying? Do I want to live here? Am I wasting my twenties? Should I be saving more, traveling more? Do I need another degree? Should I cut my hair?
Then comes my personal favourite stage: reinvention. This is when the existential crisis stops being terrifying for approximately five minutes and becomes strangely exhilarating because you realize that technically, you could change everything. For a brief moment, you are not confused. You are a woman with options.
And that, I think, is where the art of the existential crisis begins.
We treat existential crises like interruptions to our regularly scheduled lives. We’ve lost the plot, and now we need to get ourselves back on track as quickly as possible.
Sometimes everything feels wrong because something that once fit you simply doesn’t anymore. The person I was when I picked my university program at 18 isn’t the same version of myself who decides what comes next. It would almost be stranger if nothing changed.
Still, changing your mind can feel like failure because it’s natural to prefer a linear life story. Ideally, you want to choose something, work toward it, achieve it, and move on to the next goal — preferably with an aesthetically pleasing LinkedIn announcement at the end.
But, an existential crisis forces you to question that story. It takes every assumption you’ve made about your life, dumps it onto the floor, and asks what you actually want to pick back up. It’s inconvenient, dramatic, and capable of ruining a perfectly good Sunday, but there might be something worth listening to underneath the panic.
My instinct whenever I don’t know what I’m doing is to immediately create a plan. I want a plan, ideally one with bullet points and little Notes app checkboxes, so I can convince myself I’ve regained control. But, I find myself rushing into answers simply because uncertainty is uncomfortable. Despite the crippling pressure we feel to make a decision and make it quick, maybe we don’t need to decide where we want to live or even consider a master’s degree tonight.
Perhaps the art of the existential crisis is learning to sit in it long enough to actually wonder, do I still want the life I imagined? Does this still excite me, or am I holding on to it because I once decided I should? Most of the time, the existential crisis is noise, and you are on the right path, but these questions we ask ourselves help determine our true desires.
I used to imagine that eventually I would become a finished version of myself. I would have the career, the city, the routine, and I would stop questioning everything because I had finally figured myself out. I’m beginning to come to terms with the fact that this person does not and will never exist, and I don’t think I want her to.
There’s something wonderful and exciting about imagining seven different versions of my life in one week. It’s mildly exhausting, but it also means there are still things I want to try, places I want to live and versions of myself I haven’t met yet.
That is the true art of having an existential crisis. You take everything you thought you knew about yourself, question it, fantasize, panic a little and open far too many Google search tabs. Eventually, you keep the pieces that still feel like you and let the others go. Until the next crisis, obviously.
So maybe instead of viewing the existential crisis as a sign that we’re lost, we should use it as guidance to better discover ourselves and what we want to try next.